Here’s the one thing you need to know about computer and audio/video cables: They’re cheap.

“NO!” you exclaim, perturbed by my obvious and odious lie and my use of purple prose in this paragraph.

“But I spent $75 at Best Buy on an HDMI cable, and…”

Yeah, you’re an idiot. Though it’s not your fault. You, like many before you, have been duped by the markup gods and the big box retail game.

The truth is, depending on your technological needs, you can get away with paying little to nothing for cables and wires. Here’s what I mean:

Case #1: I have a new HD flatscreen television with a cable box. I do not have surround sound or an A/V receiver to hook up

You need: One HDMI cable. It will handle audio and video.

You could get away with: One component video cable (Red/Green/Blue plugs) and a Red/White RCA audio cable.

You should spend: $0. Comcast will give you either cable for free. Ask for the HDMI cable. It’s one wire that does everything instead of five wires. HDMI also supports 1080p, whereas component video only goes to 720.

What the stores have tried to sell me: An $89 — yes $89 — Monster HDMI cable. Again, you should spend ZERO dollars for the same quality.

Case #1a: I also have a Blu-ray player.

You need: To buy an HDMI cable, because it most likely did not come with your $30 Blu-ray player.

You could get away with: Asking your cable company nicely for a second HDMI cable. They literally have piles of these things.

You should spend: No more than $5. Don’t believe me? Click here.

The stores have tried to sell me: The $89 — yes $89 — Monster HDMI cable and a $35 optical audio cable. You don’t need an optical audio cable when you’re using HDMI. Ever.

Case 2: I have a flat-screen television, a brand new A/V surround sound receiver, a cable box, and a Blu-ray player.

You need: Speaker wire, a subwoofer cable, possibly a subwoofer Y-adapter, and three HDMI cables. You run one HDMI cable from the television to the receiver and one each from the receiver to the cable box and Blu-ray player. Same with a PlayStation 3. No audio cables needed. You run speaker wire from each speaker to its corresponding port on the receiver. DO NOT buy banana plugs or any other kind of accessory for the speaker wire. It’s simply another point of potential failure. Just use the bare wire.

You can get away with: Do not use component video cables. You’ll have to buy a separate coaxial or optical audio cable for surround sound (Dolby Digital/DTS) audio. Just use HDMI.

You should spend: $5 or less per HDMI cable and no more than about $15 for the speaker wire.

The stores have tried to sell me: The $89 — yes $89 — Monster HDMI cables, $35 optical audio cables, $40 Monster speaker cable and $10 speaker cable attachments.

Case 3: I have several home networking devices, including a NAS device, home theater PC, video game consoles, and a network printer

You need: Cat 6 cables and a gigabit router with Wireless N. You can use Wi-Fi for things like Wii, room monitors/security cameras, a smart thermostat, etc. For an Xbox 360/PS3, a computer, a NAS, and anything that is storing photos, videos, or music, you should make sure it is plugged into the network directly. Just my advice. Some will say Wi-Fi is there, but I say plug it in.

You can get away with: Cat 5e cables and a gigabit router with Wireless N.

You should spend: About $100 on the router (see this story) and $2-20 on each network wire.

The stores have tried to sell me: Extremely marked up routers and $20-40 cables. Think twice.

Set-top boxes in the U.S. consume 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity each year, equivalent to the annual output of six coal-fired power plants. Part of the reason is that they typically operate at nearly full power even during the two-thirds of the time when they are not in use. (Thinkstock)

We hear a lot about how much energy modern day flat screen TV sets consume, but the innocuous set-top boxes that drive them, along with their built-in digital video recorders, may be even more to blame. A recent analysis conducted by the consulting firm Ecos on behalf of the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) found that “the average new cable high-definition digital video recorder (HD-DVR) consumes more than half the energy of an average new refrigerator and more than an average new flat-panel television.” Overall, set-top boxes in the U.S. consume some 27 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity. This is equal to the annual output of six average (500 megawatt) coal-fired power plants and accounts for the emission of 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.

Part of the reason these boxes are such energy hogs is that they typically operate at nearly full power even during the two-thirds of the time when they are not actively in use driving TV screens or recording to built-in DVRs. “As a nation, we spend $2 billion each year to power these boxes when they are not being actively used,” reports NRDC.

To make matters worse, American consumers have little if any choice about which set-top boxes they get from their cable or satellite service providers. Since the providers usually own the boxes yet don’t have to pay consumers’ electric bills, they have little incentive to utilize or develop more efficient models. In Europe, Sky Broadcasting is beginning to distribute more efficient equipment to subscribers there. NRDC is urging the largest pay-TV service providers in the U.S. (Comcast, Time Warner, DirecTV, Dish Network, Verizon and AT&T) to heed the efficiency call with their own set-top box and DVR offerings.

Redesigning set-top boxes to power down when not in use is perhaps the biggest opportunity for energy savings. “Innovation to reduce power consumption when not in active use—such as has occurred with mobile phones, which also work on a subscriber basis and require secure connections—is sorely needed in set-top boxes,” counsels NRDC. Also, re-jiggering content delivery systems so that only one main set-top box sends signals to all the televisions in the house (or to lower power “thin client” boxes) could also cut down household electric bills and carbon footprints. The group adds that “better designed pay-TV set-top boxes could reduce the energy use of the installed base of boxes by 30 percent to 50 percent by 2020.”

Last year the U.S. government released new energy efficiency standards for set-top boxes within its EnergyStar appliance efficiency rating program. While this new specification is a step in the right direction, consumers have little knowledge about such options. NRDC urges pay-TV subscribers to request that their providers make available set-top boxes and DVRs that meet the newer EnergyStar 4.0 standards. The more of us that request such improvements, the likelier they are to happen. And the cable or satellite provider that can save customers money while reducing overall environmental impact may just win over an increasingly large sector of the American people that actually cares about being green.

CONTACTS: NRDC’s “Better Viewing, Lower Energy Bills, and Less Pollution,” www.nrdc.org/energy/files/settopboxes.pdf; EnergyStar, www.energystar.gov.

Television and Internet services are expensive. And we’re juiced into buying service because we simply need both in our lives in the 21st Century.

I’ve written previously about the tricks and traps that both Verizon and Comcast throw at you. It’s a racket. Everyone knows it. Everyone pays.

But there are things you can do to help mitigate the screwjob. Here are five things you need to do before you sign up for television and/or Internet service.

1. Buy your own modem

SURFboard SB6120

Do not rent a modem from the company. It’s a waste of money, and you will may end up with an older model that actually can’t process data as fast as your cable service can send it out. Translation: Blast! Comcast Internet might not come through any faster than the basic package with an older modem.

If you DO rent a modem, make sure they give you one that is “DOCSIS 3.0.”

The Motorola SURFboard SB6120 is the best modem on the market. The newer SB6121 model is only more expensive. It won’t do anything else for you. Both are supported by Comcast, however, so if you’re one of those people that needs the newest model, go for it.

Generally avoid modems that have wireless routers built in.

Now, you may have to ignore this step entirely if you are bundling your home phone service , because you’ll need to buy or rent a modem that handles your Internet and phone service. One of the best is the Motorola SBV6220, but Comcast currently does not support it. (Check Comcast’s official compatibility list before buying anything)

2. Buy a router

The Netgear N750 WNDR4000

By rule of thumb, here in late 2011, you should buy a Wireless N router with gigabit Ethernet.

The major brands, D-Link, Cisco, Belkin and Netgear are all usually pretty good. I prefer Netgear, but it’s more of a personal preference.

This is not the kind of thing you want to skimp on.

The Netgear D600 WNDR3700 is a good, affordable router. It’s one of the best values in wireless routers. It is great for gaming or streaming movies and does 300 MBPS wireless networking.

If you want to go a little better, the N750 WNDR4000 is probably the best wireless router you can buy for home or small office use. It can do 450 MBPS WiFi and has a USB port to plug a portable hard drive in for an instant network attached storage device.

3. Do not cancel your home phone service ahead of time.

If you’re making the big Comcast (Or Time Warner, Cox, etc) leap, the odds are you’re going to buy a bundle package that includes home phone service. If you’re a big land line user, this could save you some money. Do not cancel your existing home phone service yet. Order the service, give the cable company your phone number, and they will port the number to your new service, just like you do when you switch cell phone companies. Otherwise, you could get stuck with a new number, new area code, and lose the number you’ve had for years.

4. Argue, lie, cheat

When you’re on the phone, ordering your service, don’t accept their offer. Tell them their rival is cheaper. Tell them the price is way too high. Lie if you have to.

They likely will come down on the price or magically discover a hidden deal they can offer you that might save you $20 per month. You might get transferred a few times, but hell, it’s money!

5. Check your wiring

Or have the tech check your wiring. If you live in an old house or are renting, the odds are good that the cable wires have been there for a while. Check for cable splitters too. Nothing is worse for cable Internet than a signal that’s been split a bunch of times over old wiring.

The tech will do some replacing if need be. Broadband is FAST these days. You’re paying the same as everyone else (unless you followed step 4 really well) so you might as well get the same speed in the end.

Time was, everyone complained about their electric bill. Time is, everyone complains about their water bill, especially with The Great Boston Water Boil Order going on this week.

But the real ripoff is television and Internet service, and it doesn’t matter which company you select.

Let’s take the example of our fair city.

Comcast enjoys a virtual monopoly over most of the residential parts of the city, and if you go to Comcast.com, you’ll see a variety of innocuous-looking deals.

Digital Preferred Cable, with most of the popular cable channels, including MTV, Discovery Channel, Nickelodeon, ESPN, and CNN. It’s $39.99 per month for the first six months, but it jumps to $79.99 per month after the first year.

Internet has an even bigger jump. It starts at $19.99 per month for the first six months, and goes to $44.95 per month after that.

Of course, they want you to get the “bundle.” So you can move your home phone service — or sign UP for home phone service if you’re like the rest of us — and pay $199.99 per month for TV, phone and Internet.

The average American household has three televisions. Get ready to add $14.95 per month per cable box. Then you either have to buy a cable modem or rent one from them. They charge a monthly fee for each remote control you have, too.

DVR service is also extra.

And Comcast, conveniently, makes it hard to find the “double play” option that let’s you opt out of phone service. They really want you to have to buy the phone service to get the “deal.”

You can get 15 Mbps Internet and Digital Preferred Cable service for $79.99 per month for six months, which then jumps to $119.00 per month. You get one box but would have to pay extra for DVR, any other boxes, and rental fees for remote controls and the cable modem.

Some people even get stuck paying a rental fee for a router that they supply you. Buy your own router.

Add it all up, and you could be paying $200 per month.

Forget about Xfinity. It doesn’t exist. It’s just Comcast with a different logo. If you go to Xfinity.com and click “order,” it forwards you to the same Comcast.com site we just visited.

Verizon is the other player in Boston, but they’ve been so slow to expand their FiOS service — it’s not available in most places, let’s put it that way.

You can get DSL service from Verizon for $19.99 per month, forever, and they throw in a free wireless router. But you still have to rent or buy a DSL modem.

This price sounds great, eh?

Wrong.

This price, advertised at the top of Verizon.com, is only good if you’re a Verizon phone service customer.

Upon closer examination, we also find that the $19.99 plan is the “up to 1 Mbps” plan. That’s as slow as it gets in the “broadband” world. If all you do is send e-mail and visit a few websites, you might get by, but we do not recommend this plan.

The “turbo” Verizon plan, which maxes out at 7.1 Mbps is $39.99 per month to phone customers, and $49.99 per month to regular Joe six-packs.

That’s a higher price for service that’s about 1/3 the speed of cable Internet.

If you don’t have FiOS in your area, you’d have to get DirecTV satellite television service if you went with Verizon.

There’s an interesting bundle there: $84.99 for television, phone and Internet. But let’s dissect that bundle. It gets you more than 210 channels, including your local stations and most popular “cable” channels. It even includes DVR, but you don’t get any HD converter boxes with this package. You’d have to upgrade to the $99.99 bundle to get a box that lets you display in high-definition. Then you’d still have to pay for additional boxes for your other televisions. With any bundle, you’re stuck with home phone service that you may not use.

There’s nothing we can do or say that will make this any better for you. For now, the going rate for fast Internet and most of your favorite television channels is upwards of $200 per month.

Hulu continues to permeate society as the video and TV content medium of choice for the internet savvy. The last time we looked at them, they were gaining serious ground. So, just how “big” is Hulu?

According to comScore some 38 million people used Hulu this July. This surpasses Business Insiders estimate of 34 million subscribers for Time Warner Cable, the United States second largest cable company. To put this all in perspective Comcast, the US’s largest cable company, has about 62 million viewers. Viewership statistics for the cable companies were derived by multiplying the number of subscribers by 2.59, which is what the census bureau tells us is the average person per household.

Some numbers to consider.

This means that Hulu is effectively the second largest provider of television content for Americans. If only the internet could prove a reliable cash cow for producers Hulu could easily be the platform of the future; however, for now they will have to be content with second place.

On Tuesday, Karin Gilford, chief of Comcast’s online division, told PCWorld.com about the latest move by the cable giant. “The Comcast On Demand online video service will allow Comcast subscribers to sign in with a username and password, then access any standard or premium cable content that their cable subscription entitles them to watch.”

Fancast has always provided VOD, over 3,000 film and TV titles are currently available, with pricing starting from $3.99 for 24-hour film rentals, $9.99 for film purchases, and $1.99 for TV shows.The difference being, with it’s recent push in both the hardware and now content, it’s stands a chance against the likes of Hulu.com and Veoh.com, among other video sites, when it begins streaming it for free of charge. Available only to those whom already have an cable subscription with them.

While no specifics were mentioned (When will I be able to watch any show from any cable network at any time?), and the issue of recent bandwidth usage caps wasn’t addressed, the most we can be sure of is Comcast’s cautious steps into the wild west of the digital realm. With a complex system of how to pay for all the content it’s going to provide, subscribers to Comcast should look forward to milking this deal before it will surely become a paid-for-service entirely. Who needs Blockbuster or Netflix when you got this?

The day has come for all Comcast High-Speed residential Internet customers: You officially have a usage cap.

The “customer-defined” usage limit is 250GB a month. Comcast‚ says it’s “an extremely large amount of data, much more than a typical residential customer uses on a monthly basis.”

They include in their Terms of Service that this roughly constitutes:‚ 
‚ 
* Send more than 50 million plain text emails (at 5 KB/email);‚ 
* Download 62,500 songs (at 4 MB/song); or‚ 
* Download 125 standard definition movies (at 2 GB/movie).‚ 
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Comcast also released some of their current customer usage data, which puts the average residential Internet traffic downloads at 2-3 GB a month.

You should‚ notice some key word usage in the statement, that will be coming as a bill stuffer, as harmless and not worthy of another glance. “Managing the network is essential as Comcast works to promote the use and enjoyment of the Internet by all of its customers. The company uses reasonable network management practices that are consistent with industry standards. Comcast tries to use tools and technologies that are minimally intrusive and, in its independent judgment guided by industry experience, among the best in class.”

The italics are mine. With such mitigating word usage, Comcast is trying to drive the point to it’s docile customers that it’s doing this for your good, and the good of the network.‚ 
‚ 
To all the Comcast customers who just check their email,‚ you won’t be reading this unless it’s forwarded, and‚ you‚ won’t care about the limit.

To the people who read news and emails‚ and visit Myspace or Facebook, you might think about it for a second, but disregard it.

For the users who email, social network, game online and download, a notice about this usage cap will hold more weight.

Finally, there’s the Comcast customers whom utilize the Internet more efficiently and can do all of the activities above while running a P2P agent in the background. These users know exactly what it means to them.

So why should anyone who doesn’t live on the Internet care? The speed of technological advancement dictates that pretty soon, this “massive” usage cap will become a noose we so quickly placed on ourselves. With the advent of not only high-definition video on demand, and digital downloads, there are a score of other‚ programs that‚ use the bandwidth while people just check their email, or just check their networking sites.

Even websites have become more content rich. Heavy text news sites have become a multi-media room. What 56K once could handle is‚ a neanderthal-like usage now with higher speeds becoming standard. As Internet speeds rise, and our daily lives connect more to the Internet, the usage cap will seem more and more stringent.‚ 
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“Though the proposed cap is relatively high, it will increasingly ensnare more users as technology continues its natural progression,” said Free Press Research Director S. Derek Turner.‚ 
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For those Blast Magazine readers live on the Internet and are worried about what would happen if you crossed the line, don’t worry. “As part of our pre-existing policy, we will continue to contact the top users of our high-speed Internet service and ask them to curb their usage.”

“If a customer uses more than 250GB and is one of the top users of our service, he or she may be contacted by Comcast to notify them of excessive use. At that time, we’ll tell them exactly how much data per month they had used. We know from experience the vast majority of customers we ask to curb usage do so voluntarily.”

For now anyway, although the Internet is abuzz with future network shutdowns and or including excessive bandwidth usage fines, all of this is on top of the confirmed diurnal network bandwidth-throttling practices that Comcast got in trouble for.
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For the non-Comcast customer, all this should be a red flag. Comcast clearly states in their ToS that, “The need to engage in network management is not limited to Comcast. In fact, all large Internet service providers manage their networks. Many of them use the same or similar tools that Comcast does.” Comcast is‚ leading Internet service provider, so it’s only rational to expect other major ISPs to follow suit, especially if they see any Comcast practices as a “success”.

Enjoy the gallows.